The Last Unicorn (novel)

In a certain lilac wood, the leaves and snow never fall. This eternal springtime is watched over, and caused by, its magical resident--a unicorn. Having never left her forest, the unicorn is surprised to overhear two hunters speaking about the disappearance of the unicorns. In fact, they believe her to be the very last.

Unwilling to accept this, the unicorn leaves the safety of her forest and sets out to find others of her kind, following the information given to her by a philosophical butterfly. Along the way, she learns through bitter experience of human cruelty, ignorance and greed. She is mistaken for a horse (much to her displeasure), captured and placed in a circus sideshow, and pursued by a demonic being--the Red Bull, which, according to local legend, is responsible for the disappearance of the other unicorns. She also meets allies who join her in her journey; the incompetent but sweet-natured wizard Schmendrick and Molly Grue, a middle-aged bandit woman with a purer heart than most virgins.

Their quest takes them to the barren lands of the embittered King Haggard, master of the Red Bull, and his naive foster son Prince Lír. It is here that the unicorn, superior and aloof to all mortals, is transformed into a mere human, taking the name "Lady Amalthea", forced to see and suffer human weakness and emotion firsthand.

One of the overriding themes is the power of memory. The King remembers feeling happy once and tries to recapture it by kidnapping unicorns, the skull remembers wine, Amalthea is in danger of forgetting herself, Molly Grue remembers her lost youth, and the unicorn will forever remember being in love.

Bittersweet Ending: The Last Unicorn finds and frees her fellows, but at a price. As a human, the Lady Amalthea falls in love with Prince Lír. Returned to her immortal form, she can no longer stay with him (or even feel love anymore), so she leaves both her love and her two human friends behind to return to her home in the lilac wood. Even sadder, however, because she has experienced love, aging, and regret--experiences foreign to "pure" unicorns--she is no longer as innocent and aloof as others of her kind, separating her even from her own species. And yet, as sad as these things may be, she thanks Schmendrick for them. It is a good thing to have known love.

Nikos, Schmendrick's teacher: "Therefore I grant that from this day forth you shall not grow old, but will travel the world round and round, eternally inefficient, until at last you come to yourself and know what you are. Don't thank me. I tremble at your doom."

Cats Are Mean: Well, not entirely, but the kitchen cat at Haggard's castle is a Trickster, and could give more help than he does.

Cat: I am sorry. I would tell you what you want to know if I could, for you have been kind to me. But I am a cat, and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer.

Childless Dystopia: Hagsgate, due to a prophecy that a child from the town would bring down the king.

Cloudcuckoolander: The butterfly sings songs, recites poetry, quotes a warning from a matchbox at one point, and occasionally says something useful. It's at least implied, if not stated outright, that verbatim parroting what he's heard others say before is actually the only way any butterfly can talk at all. He seems to understand what the unicorn is after well enough, though.

Schmendrick's magic only works on occasion, and when it does, something usually goes wrong with it. But by the end of the book, he is able to return the unicorn to her true form - a feat his teacher, Nikos, the greatest of magicians, couldn't perform. Years later, Schmendrick's name would become even greater than that of his master's.

Lír starts off as a lazy schmuck, but eventually fights the Red Bull, lays down his life to save the unicorn, and becomes King. In the sequel, he eventually gives his life to save a small girl from a griffin.

Schmendrick: With a word and a wave, he [Nikos] transformed the unicorn into a handsome young man, who woke, and seeing the astonished bowmen gaping there, charged upon them and killed them all. His sword was of a twisted, tapering design, and he trampled the bodies when the men were dead.

Haggard: "I know you! I almost knew you as soon as I saw you on the road coming to my door. Since then, there is no movement of yours that has not betrayed you! A pace, a glance, a turn of the head, the flash of your throat as you breathe... even your way of standing perfectly still--they were all my spies!"

The unicorn is transformed by Schmendrick into a human woman, against her will.

In the book, Schmendrick tells of an incident where his own teacher Nikos turned another unicorn into a human man when it and a maiden watching over it were ambushed by bandits, and the (now human) unicorn killed them. Unfortunately, Nikos could not turn the unicorn back. The unicorn-turned-human settled with the maiden, both living to old age and dying without children. The unicorn thinks this would be worse than dying at the horns of the Red Bull.

Humanity Is Infectious: Amalthea eventually gains enough to the point where she "dies" when Schmendrick changes the unicorn back.

It's All About Me: Haggard's biggest vice--and danger--is his selfishness and obsessiveness.

Jumped At the Call: Both Schmendrick and Molly are willing to travel with the unicorn within hours of meeting her.

Just Like Robin Hood: Captain Cully and his outlaw gang certainly aspire to be, but instead are quite the opposite. They rob the poor because they can't fight back, and pay off the rich to turn a blind eye.

Princess Classic: Amalthea, especially as her humanity becomes more evident, acts like this, and nearly became an actual princess.

Prophecy Twist: Haggard's previous magician, Mabruk, tells Haggard "You have let your doom in by the front door, but it will not depart that way!" We assume that he's referring to Amalthea (and maybe that's all that he realizes). But Haggard's doom is actually caused by Lír, who was left on Haggard's doorstep as a baby. If Lír hadn't sacrificed his life, the unicorn would have just gone into the sea and would not have fought back against the Red Bull.

Unable to Cry: Immortal creatures. When the unicorn returns to her real shape after being human, she confesses that she wants to cry now but cannot.

Unicorn: One of the most famous. She's the size of a large pony, is often mistaken for one by the unobservant despite looking as much like a goat or deer as a horse (albeit more ethereal than any of the above), and has a leonine tail. Males of her species have beards.

Unperson: A threat by King Haggard, made all the scarier by the vagueness of just how Haggard would accomplish it.

"You are losing my interest," the rustling voice interrupted him again, "and that is very dangerous. In a moment I will have forgotten you quite entirely, and will never be able to remember just what I did with you. What I forget not only ceases to exist, but never really existed in the first place."

The book explains that she meant either "gizzard" or "weasand" (an archaic term for the throat), and amalgamated the two.

Virginity Makes You Stupid: Subverted; a virgin princess is obliged to call a unicorn before she can marry, but rather than being silly and naive she is pragmatic and cynical, treating the whole ritual as a joke.

A major theme in the story is that immortal beings cannot appreciate mortality.

Schmendrick: I was born mortal, and I have been immortal for a long, foolish time, and one day I will be mortal again--so I know something that a unicorn cannot know. Whatever can die is beautiful, more beautiful than the unicorn, who lives forever, and who is the most beautiful creature in the world.

Mommy Fortuna had a twisted view of immortality in regards to the Harpy:

Fortuna: Oh, she'll kill me one day or another. But she will remember forever that I caught her; that I held her prisoner. So there's my immortality, eh?

You Can See Me?: Mommy Fortuna, Schmendrick, Molly, and (terrifyingly) the Red Bull all know the unicorn when they see her. Most ordinary people mistake the unicorn for a white horse, and Mommy Fortuna has to put a fake horn on the unicorn to exhibit her to the public. The cat is also able to see her, because: